This week. Nicaragua took Germany to the International Court of Justice for aiding and abetting Israeli genocide. As a response, a Camp for Gaza has been set up opposite the Bundestag where it plans to stay all week. You can find out more by joining the Telegram group Besetzung gegen Besatzung / Occupy Against Occupation. Or just bring your tent and join us! “The camp is open to everyone – since Monday, more and more people heard about the camp and joined spontaneously. There will be regular workshops and rallies. The participants would welcome your support, so please visit them and bring food and drink, and anything else which could support them. Press requests should be sent to Besetzunggegenbesatzung@systemli.org.
Tonight (Thursday), at Hopscotch Reading Rooms, John Merrick will be introducing the new book Workshop of the World: Essays in People’s History, which he has edited. “Workshop of the World reveals how Raphael Samuel dived into the nineteenth century to find just how onions were pickled or the temperature of cheese tested, extending far and wide from the rough sleepers in Willesden to Roman Catholic missionaries in Wallasey. John Merrick’s collection of Samuel’s essay provides the reader with an invaluable introduction to the political and cultural background which inspired this insightful and exploratory radical historian.” – Sheila Rowbotham. The meeting starts at 7pm at Gerichtstraße 45.
Tomorrow, and all weekend, it’s the Palestine Congress. If you have a ticket, well done. The congress sold out weeks ago. You will soon be receiving a message from the organisers about the venue. If you don’t have a ticket, don’t worry, you can watch the main meetings on a livestream, which will be posted on the Congress homepage. On Saturday and Sunday, theleftberlin is organising a communal livestream, where you can watch with other people. Doors open at Al-Hamra, Raumerstraße 16, each day at 9.30am. On Saturday afternoon there will be a Networking meeting to coordinate existing activities and plan for the future.
On Saturday at 3pm, there’s a demonstration against Transphobia. On 13th November there was a brutal attack against a Trans woman in Weißensee. Four men attacked her on her way home. Transphobic violence has many faces. And we should stand up against all these forms. Do not look away from anti-queer attacks, and show solidarity with one another! Come at 3pm to Antonplatz to take to the streets together and show that no-one is alone. If someone in our district is the victim of anti-queer attacks, we will answer together and make sure that that was the last attack! Be active in everyday life and on the streets! Come to the demonstration! Weißensee remains queer and antifascist!
On Sunday from 1pm, there will be a Rave Rally – Save our Tuntenhaus in front of Kastanienallee 86, Berlin. Time is running out! – We only have 4 weeks left! Take to the streets against displacement and for the preservation of a queer Berlin! RAVE rally for and with the Tuntenhaus! Support our demand to the Berlin Senate: Enable the purchase & restoration of the Tuntenhaus by a co-operative through funding! We still want an experimental, subcultural and avant-garde Berlin! We want its creative potential to be nourished by enabling and affirming difference! Dance, sing and cheerlead with us on the streets! Together we RAVE and SAVE Tuntenhaus! Tuntenhaus Bleibt! is our Campaign of the Week.
Our next Palestine Reading Group is on Sunday and back to the normal starting time of 7pm. This week we’ll be discussing “Feminist Perspectives on the Occupation of Palestine”. You can find the selected reading here. The Palestine Reading Group takes place every week, on either Friday or Sunday. Check the page of Events we organise for the coming dates and discussion topics. If you’d like to get more involved in the group, you can join our Telegram group and follow the channel Reading group. Meetings are in the Agit offices, Nansenstraße 2. There is a meeting for moderators (open to anyone who’s interested) half an hour before the meeting starts.
There is much more going on in Berlin this week. To find out what’s happening, go to our Events page. You can also see a shorter, but more detailed list of events in which we are directly involved in here.
If you are looking for Resources on Palestine, we have set up a page with useful links. We will be continually updating the page, so if you would like to recommend other links, please contact us on team@theleftberlin.com. You can also find all the reading from our Palestine Reading Groups here.
In News from Berlin, campaign launched to make registration easier for everyone, and protests against the Amazon tower.
In News from Germany, 1,500 extreme right wingers in Germany have arms licenses, payment cards for refugees issued, meat consumption in Germany drops, Nancy Fraser uninvited by the University of Cologne for signing a statement by Philosophers for Palestine, increase in Germans eating in Imbisse, and Nicaragua takes Germany to court.
Read all about it in this week’s News from Berlin and Germany.
New on theleftberlin, Phil Butland looks at another left-wing centre in Berlin which is banning people who support Palestine, Nathaniel Flakin looks at the Israeli who is being fined for being attacked by the Berlin police, Jara Nassar looks at the items banned from Gaza and calls on you to support the protest Camp outside the Bundestag, Ukrainian poet Ilka Kharkow looks at Art after Auschwitz, Judy Cox argues at the Cambridge Union for Marxism in the 21st Century, the organisers of the Palestine Congress explain why their conference must go on, and Nathaniel Flakin argues that the new megatower in Berlin shows that gentrifiers and property developers are now just laughing at us.
This week’s Video of the Week, shows Nicaragua’s case against Germany in this week’s hearings at the International Court of Justice.
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Keep on fighting,
The Left Berlin Editorial Board